Sterling Marlin ... through the years. Credit: Autostock

Conversation: Marlin

Veteran looks back at 30-year career, changes in NASCAR

On May 8, 1976, an 18-year-old named Sterling Marlin climbed behind the wheel of a stock car in NASCAR's premier series for the first time at Nashville Speedway.

Subbing for his famous father, Coo Coo, who was sidelined with a broken collarbone, Marlin started 30th and finished 29th.

Inside the Numbers Sterling Marlin (Cup stats to date) Years 30 Starts 685 Wins 10 Top-5s 83 Top-10s 216 Poles 11 Avg. Start 19.0 Avg. Finish 18.2 Best Rank 3 • Third in points in 1995 and 2001 STERLING MARLIN •   Driver Page •   2006 Stats

He drove a car bearing the number 14, the same number he drove to a season-best ninth on Saturday for MB2 Motorsports at Richmond International Raceway.

It was an inauspicious beginning to a career that has included consecutive wins in the Daytona 500 [1994 and '95], five top-10 finishes in the final point standings and stints under stock-car legends such as Junior Johnson and Hoss Ellington.

Known for his deep Southern drawl that often is difficult to decipher, Marlin led the point standings for 25 weeks in 2002 before a neck injury suffered in a Sept. 29 wreck at Kansas prematurely ended his season.

As he approaches his 49th birthday in June, Marlin celebrated his 30-year anniversary with his first top-10 of the season, finishing ninth at Richmond.

Q: What do you remember about your first race?

Marlin: I'd run like two Late Model Sportsman races at Nashville and had gone to Talladega for an ARCA race. My dad hit the fence in qualifying and broke his shoulder ... busted him up pretty good. We missed Talladega with the Cup race, and the next week was Nashville.

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The guy sponsoring the car wanted to run the race. My dad told me, 'If you can fix it, you can drive the car.' So me and my buddies and cousins got together and fixed it. We ran about 50 laps and busted a distributor and finished 29th.

Q: Is there any irony that you began in the No. 14 and possibly could end in the same number, which also was the number you wore as a high-school football player?

Marlin: Yeah. Last year when I realized I was coming over here I called [NASCAR president] Mike Helton and asked if he could hold the number. He said he had two or three people wanting it, but he held it for me until we put the deal together with MB2. We were glad to get it.

Q: What goes through your mind when you look at the banner at the front of your hauler showing all the different cars you've driven?

Marlin: It's a lot of good memories. In the early years, it was a lot of hard work. We had a flat-bed trailer and a 20-foot truck you threw all your tires and tools and spare parts and motors in. You didn't know at the time how good you had it later.

Going through the tough times, worrying about paying the tire bill and motor bill, it'll make me appreciate it a lot more when I quit. A lot of times I didn't have enough money for the motors. They'd tell me, 'Well, when you have enough money, pay me.' So I'd win a few races and pay them.

Sterling Marlin remembers when drivers did a lot of the work on their cars. Credit: Autostock

Q: Do you think many of the young drivers can relate to working on a car like you had to?

Marlin: Nah. Most of them probably couldn't even put a gear in a car. If you wanted to race you had to do it yourself. You couldn't afford to pay anybody. Shoot, we hung the bodies, built our own chassis. We had a guy in Nashville that built the motors.

It was pretty simple. We just went over to the Chevrolet place and get some sheet metal and go to the junkyard and get your car.

Q: What are some of the significant changes you've seen in the sport?

Marlin: Probably the safety part is the biggest. If you look back at some of the cars we drove in the mid-80s and early 90s, there were no headrests, no leg braces ... just an aluminum seat, not too thick. We wore open-face helmets, no gloves. You were just glad to be there.

Q: Do you have a favorite car that you drove?

Sterling Marlin thinks the best change through the years has been safety upgrades. Credit: Autostock

Marlin: We won races in Larry McClure's car [six of his 10 career wins were in Morgan-McClure cars from 1994-1997], and the two Daytona wins were especially special. Everybody kind of wrote me off when I got in the No. 40, the Dodge, when Chip Ganassi bought it. We had two really good years, finishing third in the points [in 2001] and came back the next year and led the points until I got hurt.

Q: Do those two Daytona wins define your career?

Marlin: I'd say so. It's tough to win a 500. The '94 deal we didn't have the fastest car, but we won the race. In '95 we had a dominant car all of Speedweeks. I don't think the car was passed but one time. It was a weekend you couldn't have written any better the car was so fast.

Q: Was the crash that ended your 2002 run the most disappointing moment of your career?

Marlin: Looking back on it now it is. I didn't think a whole lot about it at the time. I shook it off and said, 'Wait until next year.'' We just never could get the momentum or chemistry back. We had some good runs. We should have won a few races in 2003, but things happened and we wound up third or fourth.

Q: Did you ever think you might finish your career without a Cup title?

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Marlin: Nah. My first big break was driving for Hoss Ellington. We went to Daytona and qualified third. I ran 10 races for him and had a good chance to win a couple or three of them. Then I got to drive full time for Billy Hagan. You always thought about winning championships. Larry's team, we ran top-10 in points two or three times.

But I never got too excited about points championships while I was driving for it.

Q: You only signed a one-year deal with MB2. How many more years do you see yourself in Cup?

Marlin: I don't know. It's not nearly as much fun as it used to be. The money is really, really good. I still enjoy the racing part of it. The travel stuff gets old. I've probably only been home three days the past three weeks. I've got a lot of stuff do to there.

It's become more of a business now. And the cars have gotten so aero dependant, so engineer dependent. It's not like it used to be when you'd put springs in it and go racing. NASCAR kind of let it get away from them with some of the stuff they're doing on the cars. You've got to have a room full of engineers to do it.

Q: Would you like to be around to drive the "Car of Tomorrow,'' which is supposed to eliminate some of the aero dependencies that you referred to, for a few years?

Marlin: Well, it don't look like it's the way racing was to me, "The Car of Tomorrow.'' The safety, they've done a good job there. I haven't even seen one to be honest. I don't really care about seeing one. When the time comes to get in one, I'll get in one.

Inside the Numbers Marlin at Darlington Starts 43 Wins 2 Top-5s 10 Top-10s 16 Poles 2 DNFs 11 Avg. Start 14.6 Avg. Finish 18.0 • Won in 1995 and 2002

Q: What's been your favorite track?

Marlin: I really enjoyed Darlington. It was one of my favorite tracks to go to when Daddy raced. I remember how they used to put the old sealer on the track and you watched Cale [Yarborough] and Bobby [Allison] and all of 'em go at it. It takes a lot to win Darlington, and I was able to do it twice. That was a lot of fun.

Q: Which is going to happen first: NASCAR takes Darlington's final race or you stop racing?

Marlin: I hope they don't take that track. It's one of the good tracks we've got left. It's selling out now. There's a lot of history there. I'd whole lot rather be in Darlington on Labor Day than Fontana, Calif.

Q: What did you learn from your dad that you still try to use today?

Marlin: He just said when I first started to drive the car like I'm qualifying every lap. I don't see how he done it with what he had on the income he had from farming.

I run the farm now, and darn I'm not making any money on that. I don't know how he did it. I respect him a lot for doing that.

Q: Is it tough to think about the end coming to your career?

Marlin: Yeah. You know it's coming. Maybe I'll get to enjoy other things a little bit. I guess I'll spend a lot more time on the farm. It's fun to get up at 5:30 in the morning -- we've got lots of cattle -- and check things out without everybody calling and wanting this and that. I've got some real estate stuff going on, so there's still a ton of stuff to do.